ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the Mist - Switch Review

It’s funny looking back. Here I am writing a review for ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the Mist years after my review for its predecessor ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights. In the Summary for my ENDER LILIES I reviewed, I basically said it was so good that it would keep people entertained until Silksong came out... Well 3 and a half years on we are still waiting for Silksong, but at least developers Adglobe and Live Wire have provided us with a follow up to its hugely successful 2021 hit ENDER LILIES in the meantime! I’m excited to see if the sequel, ENDER MAGNOLIA, is as good as ENDER LILIES was, because if it is, we’ll have a hit on our hands!

The Good

ENDER MAGNOLIA is set in the same world as ENDER LILIES but in the distant future. The ENDER LILIES protagonist Lily is replaced by Lilac on this occasion, and her task is to clear her home world of the toxic gas that has enveloped it and turned all good to evil. The kingdom had a number of mechanical robot-like servants known as Homunculi, but these have been corrupted by the fumes and Lilac, in her role as an Attuner, must defeat the evil form of each Homunculi in order to bring them back to the light side. This is how most of the boss fights in ENDER MAGNOLIA manifest—an epic battle against various Homunculi that take all different shapes and sizes. The boss fights in ENDER LILIES were HARD and ENDER MAGNOLIA follows that pattern. However, the feeling of satisfaction when you finally take the boss down with the right concoction of equipped relics and power-ups is a truly euphoric experience as a result.

Each Homunculi in ENDER MAGNOLIA when defeated, effectively becomes part of Lilac’s party, and she can call upon their attacks at any time thereafter. Some provide Lilac with a ranged attack option, some are brute force, and some are classic melee. Each time Lilac uses them, their spirit springs forth from Lilac and attacks, and it’s a sight to behold. The artwork in ENDER MAGNOLIA is truly beautiful. Gothic and ethereal in its presentation; every backdrop is beautifully detailed. There’s one boss fight in a field full of white flowers, a la the fight with The Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3, and yet it looks as beautiful in a 2D title on the Nintendo Switch as it does in its 3D espionage counterpart. Bravo.

ENDER MAGNOLIA is so incredibly polished in its presentation, from its UI to its epic piano-driven soundtrack to its menus and tutorials. Its easy to forget that this isn’t a fully-fledged AAA game because ENDER MAGNOLIA punches above its weight in every way imaginable.

TL;DR

• Epic and rewarding boss fights
• Jaw-dropping art work
• AAA in its presentation

The Bad

I struggled to write anything bad for ENDER LILIES and ENDER MAGNOLIA will be equally challenging. There is, however, a curious design choice with the exploration progression. Typically a metroidvania might tell you how many of x collectables you have left to find in any given region, but in ENDER MAGNOLIA every individual room turns blue when you’ve found all of the items in it, meaning you’ll know instantly whether that room is complete or not. Perhaps some will welcome this as it focuses your mind on where to look to hunt things down, but for me personally, I find it a bit too hand-holdy.

Other than that, ENDER MAGNOLIA performed well for the vast majority of the time; however, there were some minor slowdowns, especially when using one particularly destructive Homunculi attack (I won’t say which one to avoid spoilers).

TL;DR

• Hand-holdy exploration progression system
• Minor slowdowns when using certain attacks

Final Score: 9/10

ENDER LILIES remains one of the best metroidvanias I’ve played on the Nintendo Switch; is ENDER MAGNOLIA any better? Probably not, but it certainly isn’t any worse either. ENDER MAGNOLIA is more of the same awesomeness as its predecessor and is so beautifully put together that it almost brings a man to tears.

Thank you for checking out our ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the Mist Switch review, thank you to Binary Haze (via Stride PR) for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

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